Tackling risks in the supply chain of rare earth-based permanent magnets used in electrical generators
Payman Jula, B. Mákszem, T. Gaidamac, Dan-Cristian Popa, Loránd Szabó
Abstract
Rare earth metals are essential in numerous critical key fields, such as renewable energy conversion, electromobility, defense, healthcare, etc. Nowadays, the world economy is becoming more and more dependent on them. Due to the concentration of mining and production in a single country, price volatility, unsustainable mining (pollution, social worries), transportation bottlenecks, etc., their supply chain is exposed to several risks. Unfortunately, there is not enough that can be done by global industrial actors to address these issues. They can only take action to reduce the imports of these truly rare resources by recovering the priceless metals from recycled end-of-life products. In the electrical machine industry (a major consumer of rare earth permanent magnets), designers can develop new structures in which the use of such permanent magnets is significantly reduced or even excluded. The paper surveys the above-mentioned solutions at the hands of engineers.